James Fallows imagines a Times Square Security Administration (TsSA) and gets it about right:
– All vans or SUVs headed into Midtown Manhattan would have to stop and have their contents inspected. If any vehicle seemed for any reason to have escaped inspection, Midtown in its entirety would be evacuated;
[…]– The restrictions would never be lifted and the TsSA would have permanent life, because the political incentives here work only one way. A politician who supports more open-ended, more thorough, more intrusive, more expensive inspections can never be proven “wrong.” The absence of attacks shows that his measures have “worked”; and a new attack shows that inspections must go further still. A politician who wants to limit the inspections can never be proven “right.” An absence of attacks means that nothing has gone wrong — yet. Any future attack would always and forever be that politician’s “fault.” Given that asymmetry of risks, what public figure will ever be able to talk about paring back the TSA?
The whole thing is worth a read.
John Cole
Why aren’t you taking this failed attack seriously? Why do you hate America? You’re with us or against us! Drill baby drill! They hate us for our freedoms!
New Yorker
Of course, “The Simpsons” got here first:
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm!
Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, dad.
Homer: Why thank you, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Hmm… Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
mistermix
@John Cole: You might appreciate this post, which was a trackback from what appears to be a wingnut blog:
http://weekendranter.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/america-vs-al-qaedathe-times-square-bomb-scare/
Mike Kay
he’s got a point.
we should eliminate TSA and simply hand out handguns to all the airplane passengers. That way if someone tries to hijack the plane, the passengers can overpower him.
burnspbesq
If the terrists can’t get into Midtown, they can go to the Upper East Side and blow up bankers. Some might see that as a win-win outcome.
John Cole
@mistermix: I’m fucking moist with nostalgia for warblogging circa 2003. Quick, someone get me a Steve Den Beste link.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Unless it interferes with business. Try this:
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newletter.
New Yorker
@mistermix:
Can wingnuts ever make a point without making reference to a work of fiction? Jack Bauer!
Also, I refuse to dignify the absurd contraption found in that SUV by calling it a “car bomb”. Somwhere, Ramzi Yousef is shaking his head….
Dave C
@John Cole:
I know it’s your blog and all, but, geez, TMI much?
;)
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
If it were up to me, I would send the terrists to blow up the 161st Street subway station and hope for a lot of collateral damage.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: More recent than 2003, but here you go.
freelancer
utoh.
dr. bloor is gonna go all scorched-earth on Fallows’ ass. Somebody should let him know.
Mike Kay
@mistermix: how dare that wingnut ass wipe compare the United States to a “deathstar” and the domestic terrorist to “luke skywalker”!?!
he probably sees tim mcveigh as han solo (tim shot first!)_
Omnes Omnibus
@freelancer: I’ll put ten large on Fallows.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@mistermix: So, you’re the right now. Winger!!
ETA: I like this quote from the fallows piece, indicating that dr. bloor’s hysteria is overblown, and how you should act:
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike Kay: But liberals hate America and don’t support the troops.
freelancer
@John Cole:
Nobody wants to be Moist.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@mistermix:
ROFL. Linking dude seems to thing this is a “right” blog.
Randy Paul
Quick, someone get me a Steve Den Beste link
I used to write Steven den Beste haikus. I’ll see if I can find some.
FWIW, I work at 120 Broadway in the financial district. THE NYPD has a checkpoint in front of the building and they do routinely stop trucks and vans.
J. Michael Neal
@burnspbesq: I’ll buy them a plane ticket if they’ll fly it into the Goldman Sachs building.
freelancer
@mistermix:
I have four or five responses to this, but they all end up with me slamming my head into my desk anyways, so fuck it.
Omnes Omnibus
@freelancer: I once worked with someone who would suggest that people “put on their big boy/girl pants” and deal with it.
mistermix
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: I think it was because I talked about shooting off firecrackers as a kid. It’s almost like shooting a gun, and a real librul would never do that.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: Why do I keep reading this as Maoist?
Just Some Fuckhead
Sounds like James Fallows is plotting an attack on the U.S.
Mr Furious
@freelancer:
LMAO. Now THAT was funny.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Wishful thinking?
MaryRC
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like that one.
I lived in England during one of the worst years of IRA
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I think we’re all pretty sure John Cole circa 2003 would proudly take Big Dick Cheney 7 days a week and twice on Sunday over any pantywaist liberal.
Corner Stone
I’m just being pissy because Paulino left a fastball over the inside half of the plate and AZ hitter crushed it to the Crawford Boxes for a 3 run HR.
Fooking young hard throwin’ pitchers. They’ll be the death of me.
Bnut
When i moved to NYC from Alabama last year, a lot of people threw the same old lines of either a)Why do you want to live in hippie-ville or b)Aren’t you scared of terrorist attacks? Few seem to be able to wrap their minds around the fact that many, many, many people in this world live with the constant threat of terrorism. NYC, London, Madrid, Baghdad, anywhere in Israel. If the people of tea bag nation had their way, NYC would be either a complete police state, or completely empty of people. Guess what asshat wingers: THIS hippie commie socialist pinko whatever is not fucking scared. Maybe of you, but certainly not of some lowlife, dipshit terrorist who wants nothing more than for GOP dreams to come true.
John Cole
@Corner Stone: Me circa 2003? I’d have worn out a keyboard talking about the existential threat.
Corner Stone
@mistermix: If I were young and stupid again I would regale this audience with stories about the pipe b@mb$ we made when we were not too swift.
And the things we did with them…not very fucking bright.
How any of us made it. Course, more than a few of us didn’t.
burnspbesq
@John Cole:
What is this “eixstential threat” of which you speak? All the Existentialists are long since dead and buried.
On the other hand, the threat of deconstruction is very real.
Omnes Omnibus
@MaryRC: I was doing a semester abroad in London at the time of the Brighton Hotel bombing. One simply takes sensible precautions and goes on with one’s life.
MaryRC
@MaryRC:
I’m not sure what happened there but here’s where I was going with that:
I lived in England during one of the worst years of IRA terrorism. They tried to blow up Harrods. Bombs really did go off.
And people just got on with their lives. They stayed calm. I remember having a qualm or two myself in Oxford Circus underground station, imagining the carnage that a bomb could cause in that confined space. But people didn’t stop using the subway, they put on their big girl/boy pants as Omnes’ friend says and dealt with it.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: That’s assuming you could’ve seen the keyboard through your spittle flecked venom.
Omnes Omnibus
@MaryRC: Technically, she wasn’t my friend; she is an appalling person, but it is a good saying nonetheless.
Kilkee
@MaryRC: Weren’t there actually simple red & white “Remain Calm” signs posted in the WW2 Underground? Same thing.
ccham44
I live nine blocks from the site, and my wife works in the MTV building where the vehicle was parked. This barely registered as water-cooler conversation this morning, other than to laugh at this numb-nuts’ pathetic attempt to hurt/frighten people.
Personally, I find it comforting that the closest things we’ve had to a successful attack in this city was a group of morons who bought fake explosives from the Feds, and a guy who tried to blow up some tanks that that Mythbusters demonstrated won’t blow up in a fire.
But then again, I just a pansy-ass, Manhattan liberal; not a big, strong, Real Murkin.
Kilkee
@Kilkee: Oh, actually, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” but apparently they never really got distributed, per Wiki. Too bad: so British.
Omnes Omnibus
@ccham44:
That is one of the things that always amazes me; the “brave” righties wetting their pants over any imaginable threat. How fucking manly is that?
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Where is Parole Officer Burke when I need him?
Calouste
@MaryRC:
Yes, most Londoners and Mancunians are probably thinking what the fuss is all about. It’s not like someone is shooting rockets at the White House or the CIA or blowing up a hotel during a party convention or making an effort to flatten downtown Chicago or blowing the VP three stories high.
OriGuy
@Kilkee:
However, you can buy them now, as well as everything else the slogan could be printed on. After you’ve bought everything in the BJ store, that is.
Ken Lovell
Just put some blast walls in Times Square … you know you want to.
Svensker
@Corner Stone:
I’m pretty sure it was venom-flecked spittle.
Corner Stone
@Svensker: I’ll stick with what I’ve got.
Kyle
And any minute now Hugh Hewitt will issue a breathless news release proclaiming his bravery in the front lines of the War on Terror, because he rode through Times Square in a taxi JUST LAST MONTH, mere FEET from the location of the IslamoLibrulDoomsday car bomb.
As always, this attack proves the need for tax cuts.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Remember him? We’re holding him ON AMERICAN SOIL!
It’s unthinkable, but there it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: I had forgotten that. Yes, let us panic. Panic now! Eep!
Martin
Fixed!
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole:
Do you want a Steve Den Beste link where he speculates about the possibility that France might turn around and attack the United States if we attack Iraq or just one of the more common ones where he talks about which Anime series has the best
wanking quotientfan service?Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and here it is, the highest quality bit of SDB nostalgia evah!
This is my favorite part:
It’s like a story problem for wingnuts.
MaryRC
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s mine now!
DPirate
If the TSA ran New York, it would be called Jerusalem.